Manolo Castro
Radio Commentator, Marketing Expert
Manager of Porche in Madrid


HE DOES NOT HAVE FRIENDS. HE CREATES FOLLOWERS.

     "With Luis, special allowances can be given since I know nothing about soccer and a national television network entrusted him with tracking the Compostela team when it was in the First Division.

     "It is incredible. In another person or in another circumstance, I assure you that it would be frustrating and, believe me, at times even maddening, but this is not the case; never with Luis. What I mean is that, any place we go, any spot we visit, any unknown corner where we feel safe, there is always someone who greets us if the illustrious Luis is around. I assure you that he is incredible. I do not claim to understand it, not even mathematically, nor can I count the number of people who, in each second, know how to show off this recognizable enviable quality. It is a paradox – and believe me, it is true – that he has been invited to weddings with an invitation from the groom in one hand and one from the bride in the other. It is a quality that is easily explicable if one knows him: Luis does not have friends, he creates followers, and he has some qualities in common with history that, if permitted, I shall explain. In the first place, allow me to clarify that, on the contrary, the articles about Luis on this site are not a successive petition on the part of those of us who honor him; we already know that he has not been devoted to increasing his phone bill and being paid back favors by asking, 'Please write an article for… ' The person in question is so special that I was the one who suggested that he write his web page. I proposed it as something intellectual and non-threatening, and I am sure that I have not been the only one; even so, if you have the patience to read this mini-story to the end, you will also understand why.  

     "I had neither the childhood nor the adolescence of the Mr. Bello, but up to a point I am glad because I met him as a result of his grandmother’s words, and this, believe me, is much more amusing than to have seen it in person, and I will speak about them regarding such a unique person. Luis appeared on July 24, 1995 on a special program on Radio Voz (now gone). I was in Santiago to produce the special for the post-Xacobeo Apostle’s Day one Saturday and the musical on the following Sunday. There were two or three editors in Madrid who knew Luis who had spoken to me about him. In order to make a special program about Santiago, we sent him to the Obradoiro Square to see what was happening over there, and he went. Good. There could have been more going on, but after some delay, his girlfriend finally decided to go into the cathedral once and for all, instead of remaining fascinated in front of the journalist to whom she asked something about that special day. The same editor, with total ease and in front of her obviously annoyed boyfriend, answered: 'Don't worry, he’s in radio; he is a special one for the whole country,' as if this would bother Luis. A wedding came to a standstill in the crowded Obradoiro Square by the doors of Santiago’s cathedral; imagine the scene. 

     "To me, Santiago is a magical place, and it is for this gentleman as well, who certainly holds many similarities with the apostle. Like Matamoros, Luis was not born here, but everyone relates him to this city; everywhere they follow his word, similar to the special sensations one feels in the cathedral, which is an eternal place. Although he may only know you a little, Luis thinks it’s fine to give you a copy of the keys to his house – for good reason, of course – which has introduced different people to each other when they show up for different reasons at his home, even when he isn’t there. Even today he practices that quality, the one that lets us have faith in many people and of which the last example was the conversion of his home in Miami into sort of a Latino press center during the recent crisis of the attacks in New York.

     "I don’t resist counting him as a close friend. In all of his homes, there has been a common denominator. At any hour of any day of any week, one always finds a particular dish in the refrigerator: crabs prepared by that incredible woman who is his mother."


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